Saturday, November 28, 2015

Holiday Themes- Do You Love Them? by Paty Jager

I have a new Christmas novella and was invited to post this month about holiday themed books. I enjoy setting stories during the holiday season of Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years. 

With Thanksgiving you can write a theme that deals with thankfulness, forgiving, and family. All wonderful elements to put in a romance story. The scenes are easy to write when you have families gathered around tables enjoying a meal, or making a pie. There are so many ways to bring the feeling of the holiday into the story and have characters interact. Even the reluctant ones. If they've had wonderful family memories and are for some reason pulling back, you can show their resistance and lure them in. If it's a character who has never had a family gathering, then you can use different holiday events to draw them in.

Christmas has the elements of caring, giving, birth, and forgiveness. Again, you can't beat those for themes of a romance or any story. Christmas, like Thanksgiving is about family and giving. If you watch the Hallmark Christmas movies you see the same plot in many of their movies but the characters and the way the couple comes together is different. Usually, in the end it's one or the others family who brings them together. My husband was upset with me because I switched channels in the middle of a Hallmark movie so I could watch The Voice. I told him the movie would be on again, they just circle them round and round. Sure enough the night he went elk hunting the movie played again. LOL And it will be on again before Christmas is over.

The New Year brings hope, resolutions, and renewal. Everyone likes a story that in the end gives the main characters a new look at their life or a way to start over. There aren't as many stories written about the New Year, but it is a great time to set a story. There is the midnight kiss that one character or another could be either dreading and can't wait for. Lots of people propose on New Year's Eve. I see New Year's as a time of new beginnings, which also plays into a romance.

Which holiday is your favorite to read stories about? Why?



A Husband for Christmas
Final Novella in the Halsey Homecoming and Halsey Brothers Series
Shayla Halsey wanted to be home for Christmas, but never imagined her travels would include spending the night in a brooding stranger’s cabin. Snowballing events cause her to look inside herself and recognize maybe it wasn’t being home she wanted as much as it was to have a home. 
   
Mace Walker has his life in order and doesn’t want it disrupted again. Yet, when he discovers a woman stranded in the snow, he has to help her—despite her overbearing and reckless fiancé. In a matter of days, Shayla turns his life upside down and forces him to decide if he should leave town or face the consequences.




Award-winning author Paty Jager and her husband raise alfalfa hay in rural eastern Oregon. On her road to publication she wrote freelance articles for two local newspapers and enjoyed her job with the County Extension service as a 4-H Program Assistant. Raising hay and cattle, riding horses, and battling rattlesnakes, she not only writes the western lifestyle, she lives it.

All Paty’s work has Western or Native American elements in them along with hints of humor and engaging characters. Her penchant for research takes her on side trips that eventually turn into yet another story
 
You can learn more about Paty at
her website; http://www.patyjager.net  
Newsletter: Paty’s Prattle: http://eepurl.com/1CFgX
twitter  @patyjag.


4 comments:

Judith Ashley said...

Thanks for the breakdown of the basic elements of Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years romances. "A Husband for Christmas" will be a bittersweet book to read because it is the last of The Halsey series. However, I can always reread them!

Paty Jager said...

Hi Judith!
Glad you liked the post. Yes, the good thing about books is you can always revisited the characters you love by re-reading the book.

Shannon said...

Love, love, LOVE them!

Paty Jager said...

Shannon, Glad to hear that! What do you like best about them?